Midcontinent Communications

Midcontinent Communications

Type	Jointly owned by Midcontinent Media and Comcast
Industry	Telecommunications, Cable TV, Internet
Founded	1931 Minneapolis, Minnesota
Headquarters	Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Area served	Minnesota South Dakota North Dakota
Key people	Pat McAdaragh, CEO
Products	Cable television Digital cable High-definition television Video on Demand Internet Telephony
Website	http://www.midcocomm.com/

Midcontinent Communications is a regional cable provider, providing a triple play service of cable television, cable modem Internet service, and cable telephone service for both North Dakota and South Dakota, along with several communities in western Minnesota. Their business-class service also provides direct fiber-optic cable services via leased data circuits for larger companies.

Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and operated as a joint venture between Midcontinent Media and Comcast, the company, also known as "Midco" provides their services to 200 communities both urban and rural, and serves an area containing nearly 200,000 customers.

History

Midcontinent Media was originally founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1931 as the Welworth Theater Company, an operator of movie theaters. The company remained in that business until the 1990s, when it sold its theaters to various chains, including Carmike Cinemas. In 1952, it bought the Midcontinent Broadcasting Company, owner of KELO-AM-FM in Sioux Falls; the company name changed to Midcontinent Media. The company also bought the construction permit for South Dakota's first television station, KELO-TV, which took to the air in 1953. Midcontinent purchased several other radio and television stations, but began exiting broadcasting in the 1990s (with KELO-TV and its satellites sold off to Young Broadcasting), selling off the last of its radio holdings in 2004.

Midco diversified and extended its reach into other areas of the Upper Midwest, providing telephone and cable TV in rural parts of its service area, starting in the 1960s. In 1999, Midcontinent Media and AT&T Broadband (formerly known as TCI) merged their cable operations in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Nebraska into Midcontinent Communications, a joint venture between both companies. The partnership continued after Comcast's purchase of AT&T Broadband.

In the fall of 2008, Charter Communications announced that it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. On October 14, 2008, an article appeared in the Fairmont, Minnesota Sentinel,^[1] reporting that Charter was selling parts of their system to Midcontinent Communications, including its Bemidji, Minnesota and International Falls, Minnesota offices. Starting February 1, 2009 Midcontinent Communications took over some Charter's cable system in Minnesota including Balaton, Bemidji, Canby, Ely, Fairmont, International Falls, Littlefork, Sherburn, and surrounding communities. Other areas in Minnesota sold to Comcast.^[2]

Midco previously provided paging service, starting in 1985, but sold its paging services to another South Dakota company, Vantek Communications, in 2004. Today, the former paging service is known as Midco Connections, a national leader in outsourced customer service specializing in catalog orders and after hours message service. Midco Connections now employs over 300 people in Sioux Falls.

Midco Sports Network

Midcontinent offers a regional sports network called Midco Sports Network (formerly MC23 until August 2010) exclusive to their service, mainly over channel 26 or 27 on all Midcontinent systems, along with an additional digital sports tier spot for system continuity, an HD version of the network, and some additional overflow channels, which broadcast University of South Dakota and South Dakota State University sports, carries Fighting Sioux Sports Network's broadcasts of University of North Dakota sports, along with many other smaller colleges in the Dakotas and Minnesota.^[3] During hours without sports programming Midco Sports Net carries ReelzChannel. Before the network launched, FSSN's broadcasts of UND sports were seen on Midco Sports Net's predecessor MC23, carried on channel 23 on most Midcontinent systems.

External links

• Midcontinent Communications website
• Midco Connections website

References

1. ^ http://fairmontsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/502139.html
2. ^ http://www.midcocomm.com/pressroom/NewsDetail202.cfm?Id=0,13
3. ^ http://midcocomm.com/pressroom/newsdetail772.cfm?Id=0,115